Some thoughts about what is happening in Israel and Gaza from an international relations perspective.

1. This is big. It will impact international relations for a generation or more, in a way that few events do. Think 9/11 or the Gulf War. Things will not go back to the way they were.

2. What Hamas did was horrific. Massacring innocent civilians goes against all humanity and against international law. The international community should condemn Hamas unreservedly, and make sure it has no place within it.

3. That Hamas behaves so appallingly is no surprise. They are religious fundamentalists who took control of Gaza nearly two decades ago, and their intransigence and maladministration have been a big part of the reason that Gaza has been such a miserable place. Israeli actions over that timeframe are another big part of the reason.

4. Israel has a right and a duty to defend itself under international law. A war in self-defence to eradicate Hamas would be defendable. Any Hamas combatants killed in that war will have been lawfully killed.

5. Israel’s right to self-defence gives them much freedom of action; but it is not absolute. It must be proportional. And it must follow international law, and the law of war.

6. That means that it cannot target civilians. Not with bombs, and not with actions such as the cutting off of food, water, power and humanitarian access.

7. This makes things almost impossible. Hamas are embedded in a densely packed civilian population, often indistinguishable among the rest. Hamas are using the Palestinians themselves, besides Israeli hostages, as a form of human shield.

8. This means we are about to witness a tragedy of massive proportions. Civilian suffering and deaths will be off the scale. Israel is likely to veer into overkill, literally, and overstep the boundaries of what is allowable under international law. Its siege and bombardment of Gaza - creating enormous civilian casualties and suffering - means it probably already has.

9. However the military situation plays out in the next few weeks, the international community is going to have to step up at some point. The Israelis cannot administer Gaza directly - they already tried and failed, and trust is now non-existent. And the Palestinians in Gaza cannot administer themselves for the foreseeable future, while this could lead to power for groups like Hamas that do not accept the existence of the state of Israel.

10. Thus, the only possible solution is some sort of UN administration, or protectorate, in the Gaza strip that would have its own internal military capability, and that would administer and help rebuild the territory until such time as free and fair elections become feasible. That is likely to be many years down the line.

11. Israel would need to invite the UN in, but they might actually be persuaded to try it. Israel will have no appetite for the two obvious alternatives: administering Gaza directly themselves, or letting the Palestinians try again. Their hardliners might push for a different option - ethnic cleansing, the removal in one way or another of all the Palestinians from Gaza. That would be a massive war crime, and the international community must not allow it to happen.

12. It would be fiendishly difficult, if not impossible, to make a UN Protectorate in Gaza work. It would require a strong, united international community working hard and in cooperation with all parties to try and make things better.

13. The international community is not strong or united. That’s a great understatement. Yet there might not be any other acceptable alternative than to try.

Patrick Tabone is an international relations graduate who has worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with the European Commission. He is currently a managing director in the private sector.